RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - A hostage situation in Rio de Janeiro involving a bus and thirty seven hostages has ended.

A man who described himself as a military police officer had earlier, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, hijacked a bus on the Rio-Niteroi bridge, a 9-mile causeway linking the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and Niteroi.

This according to Agencia Brasil, the government-run news agency in Brazil.

The man, later identified as Willian Augusto da Silva, aged 20, took charge of the bus around 6:00am local time Tuesday and threatened to douse it with gasoline and set it on fire.

He had taken a tank of gas on board.

Da Silva at first insisted that all on board the bus remain, however at one stage he agreed to release 6 of them.

The crisis came to an end when an elite squad military police sniper shot and killed the hijacker.

There were indications the man was mentally disturbed.

"The hostage situation on the Rio-Niteroi bridge has come to a close," the military police said in a statement. "The hostage-taker was neutralized by a sniper from the elite squad and all the hostages were freed."